Defence`s Feeds

A landmark case in the United States means that, for the first time, two of those responsible for the CIA’s post-2001 torture programme, have been held accountable in the courts. Much of this torture programme was carried out on Afghan soil. The two psychologists who designed and implemented the programme, have paid compensation to two survivors and to the family of Gul Rahman, an Afghan who died of hypothermia after being left semi-naked on a bare concrete floor in a CIA black site near Kabul in November 2002. US courts had thrown out previous attempts at litigation on the grounds of ‘national security’. As AAN’s Kate Clark reports, the successful case may open the door to other claims, including against government officials.

Gul Rahman, an Afghan living in Pakistan, had been driven up to Islamabad for a medical check-up and was staying with Ghairat Bahir, son-in-law of Hezb-e Islami leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, when on 29 October 2002, both men were kidnapped by US agents and Pakistani security forces and rendered to a CIA black site in Afghanistan. Both were tortured. Bahir survived (for details, see the appendix), but Rahmat Gul froze to death on the bare concrete floor of a cell in CIA custody after interrogators ordered his clothes removed because he was being “uncooperative.” A CIA review listed contributing factors leading to his death: “dehydration, lack of food, and immobility due to ‘short chaining’ [ie being held on a short chain]”

The US never informed Gul Rahman’s family of his death. Nor did they return his body. It was only many years later, in 2010, that an investigation by the Associated Press revealed he had been killed in Afghanistan.

Now, two architects of the CIA torture programme have agreed to pay an undisclosed sum in compensation to Gul Rahman’s family and two men who survived the programme, Tanzanian Suleiman Abdullah Salim and Libyan Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud (spellings for these and others mentioned in this dispatch are as per the official US spelling). The case, brought on behalf of the two men and Gul Rahman’s family by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), was against two psychologists, James Mitchell and John ‘Bruce’ Jessen, who had been contracted by the CIA to create and implement its torture programme. The two men decided to settle before the case went to court, after failing repeatedly to get it thrown out. The ACLU explained why this is such a landmark case:

Until now, every lawsuit trying to hold people accountable for the CIA torture program has been dismissed at initial stages because the government successfully argued that letting the cases proceed would reveal state secrets. But unlike previous cases, this time the Justice Department did not try to derail the lawsuit. The defendants attempted to dismiss the case multiple times, but the court consistently ruled that the plaintiffs had valid claims.

A change in the legal landscape

What changed matters was the release of a redacted summary of an investigation by the US Senate Intelligence Committee into the CIA’s rendition and torture programme in December 2014 (read it here and our analysis of its contents here). Even though much of the information had already been in the public domain (in investigations by human rights groups and journalists who spoke to survivors and, in some cases, personnel), the fact that it was the US Senate that had published the report and that it was based on the CIA’s own files meant the information was now both public and incontrovertible. The US courts – and the government – could no longer argue so easily that scrutinising the CIA’s programme would jeopardise state secrets – the grounds on which two earlier cases had been thrown out.

In May 2006, a US court turned down a claim against the former director of the CIA, George Tenet, brought by the ACLU on behalf of a German-Lebanese man, Khaled El-Masri. He was kidnapped in Macedonia in December 2003 and rendered to Afghanistan. He was drugged, beaten, stripped and given “putrid water” to drink (read here). El-Masri was held for five months even after his innocence became clear and then, said the ACLU, “deposited at night, without explanation, on a hill in Albania,” without apology or the means to get home. Nevertheless, the court accepted a US government intervention in the case which argued that allowing it to proceed would jeopardise state secrets.

A second case was also dismissed, in February 2008. This was against a subsidiary of Boeing, Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc, which had been used by the CIA to render detainees. The ACLU which filed the lawsuit argued on behalf of five detainees that “Jeppesen knowingly participated in these renditions by providing critical flight planning and logistical support services to aircraft and crews used by the CIA to forcibly disappear these five men to torture, detention and interrogation.” Three of the five plaintiffs were flown to Afghanistan where they were tortured (see details in footnote 1). Again, the court accepted a government intervention asserting “state secrets privilege” and claiming that further litigation would undermine national security interests.

This time, in the case against Mitchell and Jessen, the government chose not to try to shut the case down and the court also rejected various attempts by the two men to halt proceedings. Rather, just as the case was about to go to jury trial, the pair decided to settle the claims. By this point, the court had already decided some important questions of law.

“First,” ACLU attorney Dror Laden told AAN, “there is the series of decisions the court issued that torture committed by the government and the executive branch is a question for the courts. Judges have the power and the responsibility to decide if war crimes or torture were committed.” Secondly, he said, “This case shows how national security litigation can be conducted without jeopardising national security.” He described how dozens of lawyers were present in the court room with the government side speaking up if they were concerned that questions of national security were about to be disclosed. “The answer,” he said, “is not to shut down lawsuits from the beginning, but to creatively look at how the parties can move forward in conjunction with each other.”

What the psychologists did

The Senate report revealed (or in many instances confirmed), not only the extent of the CIA’s torture programme, but also the pivotal role played by Mitchell and Jessen. As the ACLU writes:

Drawing on their experience as psychologists and relying on experiments conducted on dogs in the 1960s… [they] proposed that CIA prisoners should be psychologically destroyed through the infliction of severe mental and physical pain and suffering. They theorized that inducing a state of “learned helplessness” in captives would eradicate any resistance they might have to interrogation. This theory had never been – and could not legally or ethically be – tested, and their program involved not only torturing prisoners but experimenting on them in violation of the international ban on non-consensual human experimentation.

Despite the CIA having previously adopted a position that torture did not work, attitudes changed following the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Worries that the agency would be committing war crimes were assuaged by a Justice Department decision to define the methods proposed as not torture. President Bush’s assertion that ‘war on terror’ detainees were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, which expressly outlaw torture, also eased the way. As ACLU has written: “the decision to torture was made deliberately, in a program characterized by human experimentation, intentional brutality, and the painstaking manipulation of the law. It was as clinical as it was cruel.” The two psychologists were contracted to design the programme of interrogation and torture, despite the fact that, as the Senate report noted, “Neither psychologist had experience as an interrogator, nor did either have specialized knowledge of al-Qa’ida, a background in terrorism, or any relevant regional, cultural, or linguistic expertise.”

The Senate report named 119 men as having been subject to CIA rendition and 39 of those as victims of torture. Most of the torture described in the report took place in black sites on Afghan soil and five of the 39 named torture victims are Afghan, including Gul Rahman (see the appendix for detail on the other four men). Many more men were tortured than are named in the report, however, including by the CIA and also, after CIA methods spread, by the US military, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Practices included: prolonged sleep deprivation (for more detail on why this is so extremely destructive, see footnote 2), forced nudity, starvation, beating, water dousing, waterboarding and extreme forms of sensory deprivation. The ACLU said the two psychologists:

… designed the abusive procedures, conditions, and cruel treatment imposed on captives during their rendition and subsequent detention, devised the torture instruments and protocols, personally tortured detainees, and trained CIA personnel in administering torture techniques. In a clear conflict of interest later acknowledged by the CIA, the two men were also tasked with evaluating the “effectiveness” of the program from which they reaped enormous profits.

Mitchell and Jessen received 1.5 and 1.1 million dollars respectively from the CIA in fees and, after they formed a company in 2005 to supply the CIA with personnel and to expand the programme, a further 81 million US dollars in the years up till 2010.

The two survivors

The two men, who along with the family of Gul Rahman, brought the case against Mitchel and Jessen were a Libyan dissident and a Tanzanian fisherman. Both had been rendered to Afghanistan. Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud had fled Libya in 1991 and was living in Pakistan when he was kidnapped in a joint US-Pakistani operation in April 2003 and taken to Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch revealed that the then Libyan president, Muammer Gaddafi, had passed his and other names on to the US claiming they were terrorists. For much of the next year, said ACLU, the CIA kept Ben Soud “naked and chained to the wall in one of three painful stress positions designed to keep him awake. He was held in complete isolation in a dungeon-like cell, starved, with no bed, blanket, or light,” not allowed to wash for five months. CIA agents forced Ben Soud into a box less than half a metre wide, hanged him from a rod and submerged him in icy water, until a doctor would decide his temperature was dangerously low. In August 2004, he was rendered to Libya where he was sentenced to life in prison, only released in 2011, a day after the start of the revolution that led to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a Tanzanian citizen, was working as a fisherman and trader in Somalia when, in March 2003, the CIA and Kenyan security forces abducted him and rendered him first to Kenya and then to Afghanistan. He was beaten, slammed into walls, hung from a rod and chained into painful stress positions for days on end. The CIA also subjected him to sleep deprivation and forced him into small boxes. He was finally freed in 2008, long after his family had given him up for dead.

More lawsuits?

The decision by Jessen and Mitchel to pay compensation may open the door to future claims. In the United States, only the state can bring a criminal lawsuit, but individuals can bring civil claims for damages. What would be even better, Human Rights Watch’s Guantanamo expert, Laura Pitter told AAN, would be if the US government acted proactively without the need for victims to go to court.

… these suits are extremely expensive. So either an NGO like the ACLU or perhaps the Center for Constitutional rights willing to make the investment necessary to pursue the case like this has to take it on, or law firms or other private attorneys do in the hopes that if they win they can recover attorneys’ fees. But that is a big risk and a big investment. The risk is lower now that the ACLU case settled because they got some good rulings, and admissions, from the defendants, but it’s still a risk so we will see. 

Up till now, the state has chosen not to prosecute anyone for the many crimes committed under the CIA’s torture programme. President George Bush authorised the programme and although President Obama banned torture as soon as he took office in 2009, his administration also decided not to prosecute. “We tortured some folks,” said Obama (quoted here) a few months before the release of the Senate torture report. “You know, it is important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.” It is impossible to see this situation changing under President Trump.

As the Office of the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court has pointed out, the scope of the Department of Justice’s preliminary review (August 2009 to June 2011) of allegations of CIA abuse of detainees, “appears to have been limited to investigating whether any unauthorised interrogation techniques were used by CIA interrogators, and if so, whether such conduct could constitute violations of any applicable criminal statutes.” (emphasis added) In other words, there has been no criminal investigation into the use of authorised torture techniques, a point highlighted by the Office of the Prosecutor which quoted the US Attorney General:

“…the Department of Justice (DOJ) will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.”

There have been no prosecutions of anyone involved in the killing of Gul Rahman. His case, along with that of the Iraqi, Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in CIA custody in 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, was referred to the Justice Department. It decided not to bring charges and, in 2012, the US Attorney General prosecutors announced that the investigation would be closed because “the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt” (see here and here).

In March 2003, said the Senate report, “just four months after the death of Gul Rahman, the CIA Station in Country recommended that [redacted] CIA officer receive a “cash award” of $2,500 for his “consistently superior work.” The manger of the detention side stayed in position and “was formally certified as a CIA interrogator in April 2003 after the practical portion of his training requirement was waived because of his past experience with interrogations” at the site.

Other avenues to seek justice

Some victims of the CIA have sought other avenues of redress, although no-one, before the current case has been able to touch any of the Americans involved in the torture programme. Two men who are still held in Guantanamo, Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubayda, sued Poland at the European Court of Human Rights. It ruled on 24 July 2014 that Poland had violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it co-operated with the CIA in their renditions, allowing the unlawful detention and torture of the two men on its territory in 2002–2003. The court ordered the Polish government to pay each of the men 100,000 Euros (118 USD) in damages (read here and here). On 13 December 2012, the same court found in favour of Khaled El-Masri against the government of Macedonia which had aided the CIA in his rendition (see here and here). German authorities, though, terminated their inquest against 13 CIA staff accused of involvement in the case in April 2017. On 20 September 2012, the highest court in Italy upheld convictions against 23 CIA agents and a US air force officer, in absentia, over the abduction in February 2003 of an Egyptian imam, Abu Omar. Two Italians were also earlier convicted. Abu Omar was held in Egypt where he was tortured, including with the use of electric shocks, and held until February 2007 when he was released without charge.

Some countries have given compensation to victims. They include the UK which chose to give the nine British nationals and six British residents released from Guantanamo around one and a half million dollars each, settling civil damages claims rather than, reported AFP, “contest in court allegations that Britain’s security services were complicit in what happened.”  One of the child prisoners at Guantanamo, Canadian Omar Khadr, was given damages by his government amounting to an equivalent of eight million US dollars.

Up till the Mitchell and Jessen case, however, only claims against those tangentially involved in torture had succeeded, largely the countries which aided the CIA in its rendition programme. The pay outs by the two psychologist torturers does make future civil claims in the United States more likely. However, there is still no prospect of criminal prosecutions of American torturers in America itself. This fact, that successive US governments have chosen to give officials impunity for some of the most serious crimes possible, means the International Criminal Court (ICC) could take up this case. As AAN has reported, (3) the ICC has already decided that there is a case to answer for CIA and US military torture. It is currently pondering whether or not to proceed with building cases against specific alleged perpetrators.

 

Appendix: Other Afghan victims of CIA torture

There are many published accounts of Afghans having been tortured by the US military and by the CIA. They include the following:

Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: American, the Taliban and the War through Afghan Eyes, New York, Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company

Abdul Salaam Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban, London, Hurst 2011

Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition, Open Society Foundations, February 2013

Enduring Freedom Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch, March 2004

There have also been official US investigations into torture by US personnel, including: United States Senate Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody, Committee on Armed Services, 20 November 2008

Other official US reports (up till 2008) are listed by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) here: Research Brief: Selected examples of Defence, Intelligence and Justice Investigative Reports into detention and interrogation practices, 2 November 2008

There have also been numerous reports by journalists, including for example by Craig Pyes and Kevin Sack, ‘Two Deaths Were a “Clue That Something’s Wrong”’, The Los Angeles Times, 25 September 2006 and, ‘U.S. Probing Alleged Abuse of Afghans’, The Los Angeles Times, 21 September 2004

As well as Gul Rahman, four Afghans are named by the Senate as having been tortured by the CIA. The four are:

Ghairat Bahir, son-in-law of Hekmatyar, kidnapped with Gul Rahman in October 2002 and held in the CIA’s Salt Pit for six months. “’I was left naked, sleeping on the barren concrete,’” Bahir told AP. He said his interrogators would tie him to a chair and sit on his stomach. They also hung him naked, he said, for hours on end. Bahir was subsequently moved to US military custody in Bagram and released in May 2008.

Arsala Khan, when in his mid-50s, was captured in 2003 and accused of having guided Osama bin Laden through the mountains of Tora Bora to safety in 2001. Kept in a CIA black site in Afghanistan, the Senate report said:

After 56 hours of standing sleep deprivation, Arsala Khan was described as barely able to enunciate, and being “visibly shaken by his hallucinations depicting dogs mauling and killing his sons and family.” According to CIA cables, Arsala Khan “stated that [the interrogator] was responsible for killing them and feeding them to the dogs.” Arsala Khan was subsequently allowed to sleep. Two days later, however, the interrogators returned him to standing sleep deprivation. After subjecting Khan to 21 additional hours of sleep deprivation, interrogators stopped using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.

Khan was kept at Bagram for a further four years, despite the US coming to believe he was innocent, after, the Senate report said, “the development of significant intelligence indicating that the source who reported that Arsala Khan had aided Usama bin Laden had a vendetta against Arsala Khan’s family.”

Janat Gul (also known as Hammidullah), former president of Ariana Airline, was captured in January 2003 in Lashkargar, Afghanistan. He was held in a secret CIA prison in Bucharest, Romania, in 2004 where he was subject, said the Senate report to “continuous sleep deprivation, facial holds, attention grasps, facial slaps, stress positions, and walling until he experienced auditory and visual hallucinations. Janat Gul was subsequently transferred to Guantánamo Bay and was finally released to Afghanistan on April 18, 2005.

Muhammad Rahim was detained by the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, and handed over to the US in 2007. It seems Pakistan had told the US he might know the whereabouts of bin Laden and, as AAN has written, while held in a CIA black site in Afghanistan, Rahim was subject to slapping, hooding, solitary confinement, dietary manipulation and prolonged bouts of sleep deprivation:

Rahim was forcibly kept awake by being shackled in a standing position; he was also made to wear a diaper so that toilet breaks would not interrupt the sessions and, probably, as a further means of humiliation. After a first session of 104.5 hours – more than four days – without sleep, he started suffering hallucinations and was allowed to sleep for eight hours. Then, after a psychiatrist determined he had been faking the hallucinations, he was forcibly prevented from sleeping for another two and a half days. In all, he suffered eight sessions of sleep deprivation, including three which lasted for more than four days and one, the last, which lasted for almost six (138.5 hours).

The CIA interrogators, said the Senate Report, produced no disseminated intelligence report. Even so, the US believed and continues to believe it had captured a senior associate of bin Laden. He was transferred to Guantanamo and remains there till this day. He is the last known detainee of any nationality to be rendered and tortured by the CIA and the last Afghan to be taken to Guantánamo Bay. Because the US military has classified Rahim as a ‘high value’ detainee which means the detail and much of the substance of the US case is secret. His lawyer has said he cannot publically say why he believes Rahim is innocent because to do so would reveal classified information. He has been deemed a ‘forever prisoner’, ie not suitable for release or criminal trial. (For more on this case and the many questions surrounding the US assertions of Rahim’s al Qaeda membership, see this longer AAN report).

 

(1) The following allegations were made (text from the 8 September 2010 decision by the Court of Appeal when it overturned its earlier ruling, made in April 2009 that the government could not invoke the state secrets privilege to dismiss an entire suit, only to dismiss specific evidence):

Plaintiff Binyam Mohamed, a 28-year-old Ethiopian citizen and legal resident of the United Kingdom, was arrested in Pakistan on immigration charges. Mohamed was allegedly flown to Morocco… where he claims he was transferred to the custody of Moroccan security agents. These Moroccan authorities allegedly subjected Mohamed to “severe physical and psychological torture,” including routinely beating him and breaking his bones. He says they cut him with a scalpel all over his body, including on his penis, and poured “hot stinging liquid” into the open wounds. He was blindfolded and handcuffed while being made “to listen to extremely loud music day and night.”

After 18 months in Moroccan custody, Mohamed was allegedly transferred back to American custody and flown to Afghanistan. He claims he was detained there in a CIA “dark prison” where he was kept in “near permanent darkness” and subjected to loud noise, such as the recorded screams of women and children, 24 hours a day. Mohamed was fed sparingly and irregularly and in four months he lost between 40 and 60 pounds. Eventually, Mohamed was transferred to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he remained for nearly five years. He was released and returned to the United Kingdom during the pendency of this appeal.

Plaintiff Bisher al-Rawi, a 39-year-old Iraqi citizen and legal resident of the United Kingdom, was arrested in Gambia while traveling on legitimate business. Like the other plaintiffs, al-Rawi claims he was put in a diaper and shackles and placed on an airplane, where he was flown to Afghanistan. He says he was detained in the same “dark prison” as Mohamed and loud noises were played 24 hours per day to deprive him of sleep. Al-Rawi alleges he was eventually transferred to Bagram Air Base, where he was “subjected to humiliation, degradation, and physical and psychological torture by U.S. officials,” including being beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with death. Al-Rawi was eventually transferred to Guantanamo; in preparation for the flight, he says he was “shackled and handcuffed in excruciating pain” as a result of his beatings. Al-Rawi was eventually released from Guantanamo and returned to the United Kingdom.

Plaintiff Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, a 38-year-old Yemeni citizen, says he was apprehended by agents of the Jordanian government while he was visiting Jordan to assist his ailing mother. After a brief detention during which he was “subject[ed] to severe physical and psychological abuse,” Bashmilah claims he was given over to agents of the U.S. government, who flew him to Afghanistan in similar fashion as the other plaintiffs. Once in Afghanistan, Bashmilah says he was placed in solitary confinement, in 24-hour darkness, where he was deprived of sleep and shackled in painful positions. He was subsequently moved to another cell where he was subjected to 24-hour light and loud noise. Depressed by his conditions, Bashmilah attempted suicide three times. Later, Bashmilah claims he was transferred by airplane to an unknown CIA “black site” prison, where he “suffered sensory manipulation through constant exposure to white noise, alternating with deafeningly loud music” and 24-hour light. Bashmilah alleges he was transferred once more to Yemen, where he was tried and convicted of a trivial crime, sentenced to time served abroad and released.

Plaintiff Ahmed Agiza, an Egyptian national who had been seeking asylum in Sweden, was captured by Swedish authorities, allegedly transferred to American custody and flown to Egypt. In Egypt, he claims he was held for five weeks “in a squalid, windowless, and frigid cell,” where he was “severely and repeatedly beaten” and subjected to electric shock through electrodes attached to his ear lobes, nipples and genitals. Agiza was held in detention for two and a half years, after which he was given a six-hour trial before a military court, convicted and sentenced to 15 years in Egyptian prison. According to plaintiffs, “[v]irtually every aspect of Agiza’s rendition, including his torture in Egypt, has been publicly acknowledged by the Swedish government.”

Plaintiff Abou Elkassim Britel, a 40-year-old Italian citizen of Moroccan origin, was arrested and detained in Pakistan on immigration charges. After several months in Pakistani detention, Britel was allegedly transferred to the custody of American officials. These officials dressed Britel in a diaper and a torn t-shirt and shackled and blindfolded him for a flight to Morocco. Once in Morocco, he says he was detained incommunicado by Moroccan security services at the Temara prison, where he was beaten, deprived of sleep and food and threatened with sexual torture, including sodomy with a bottle and castration. After being released and re-detained, Britel says he was coerced into signing a false confession, convicted of terrorism-related charges and sentenced to 15 years in a Moroccan prison.

(2) As AAN has previously written, the effects of sleep deprivation are well documented, including by the US courts. Hernan Reyes, a specialist in the medical effects of detention working with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), writing about psychological torture for the ICRC Journal quoted a 1944 case in America (Ashcraft v. Tennessee):

Although [the defendant] Ashraft was only subjected to 36 hours of sleep deprivation, the court ruled it to be both physical and mental torture. In a ruling not only categorizing sleep deprivation as torture but further emphasizing the unreliability of any information obtained in such a way, US Justice Hugo Black stated that ‘‘deprivation of sleep is the most effective torture, and certain to produce any confession desired.’’

After two nights without sleep, according to a psychoanalyst working with victims of torture who was quoted by Reyes, “the hallucinations start.” After three nights, people dream while awake, “a form of psychosis,” the psychoanalyst says. “By the week’s end, people lose their orientation in place and time – the people you’re speaking to become people from your past; a window might become a view of the sea seen in your younger days. To deprive someone of sleep is to tamper with their equilibrium and their sanity.”

(3) AAN wrote:

The information available, says the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), provides a reasonable basis to believe that during interrogations of security detainees and in conduct supporting those interrogations, members of the US armed forces and the CIA:

… resorted to techniques amounting to the commission of the war crimes of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape… Specifically:

Members of US armed forces appear to have subjected at least 61 detained persons to torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity on the territory of Afghanistan between 1 May 2003 and 31 December 2014. The majority of the abuses are alleged to have occurred in 2003-2004.

Members of the CIA appear to have subjected at least 27 detained persons to torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity and/or rape on the territory of Afghanistan and other States Parties to the Statute (namely Poland, Romania and Lithuania) between December 2002 and March 2008. The majority of the abuses are alleged to have occurred in 2003-2004.

Crucially, the OTP says, these “alleged crimes were not the abuses of a few isolated individuals,” but rather were part of a policy:

The Office considers that there is a reasonable basis to believe these alleged crimes were committed in furtherance of a policy or policies aimed at eliciting information through the use of interrogation techniques involving cruel or violent methods which would support US objectives in the conflict in Afghanistan.

 

 

 

 

Serbian Zastava M92 Compact Assault Rifle

A new law on freedom of assembly is under consideration in Afghanistan. The National Security Council (NSC) decided to replace the current Law on Gatherings, Demonstrations and Strikes (hereafter called the Assembly Law) after the deadly explosion which targeted protesters in the Deh Mazang area of Kabul on 23 July 2016. A draft of the law, leaked on 8 July 2017, has led to strong reactions from civil society, as it became obvious that the new law would seriously restrict the right to organise and participate in demonstrations, public gatherings, strikes and sit-ins. A group of civil society activists has now asked the government to amend the draft. In this Q&A, AAN’s Ehsan Qaane goes through the new draft law in detail, explains why it was drafted, what its implications might be and what reactions to it have been.

1. Why is the Assembly Law being redrafted?

Various factors came together to prompt the renewal of the Assembly Law: the fear of demonstrations getting out of hand and threatening a vulnerable government, the wish to limit the negative repercussions of prolonged protests on the economic and civilian life of a city, the need to protect demonstrators in mass protests from possible terrorist attack, and the need to fix a faulty law.

The current law was enacted in January 2003 based on the 1964 constitution (also known as King Zahir Shah’s Constitution, full text here), as the current constitution had not yet been endorsed (this happened in the Constitutional Loya Jirga on 24 January 2004). The decision to renew the Assembly Law was made by the National Security Council on 31 August 2016, one month after a suicide attacker detonated his explosives in the middle of a mass protest by the Enlightenment Movement, on 23 July 2016; the bomber killed more than 80 people and injured around 300 others (see AAN’s analysis about the Enlightenment demonstration here and here). The drafting process of the new Assembly Law was accelerated during another round of massive demonstrations and sit-ins by another protest movement, ‘Uprising for Change’ that took place in Kabul from 2 to 20 June 2017 (more details here and here). Uprising for Change is a socio-political movement, led by group of independent young politicians and civil society activists, mainly Tajiks.

The Enlightenment Movement, led by a group of MPs, social activists and young politicians, mainly Hazara, had called the 23 July 2016 demonstration in Deh Mazang to protest the Afghan government’s decision to route a major electricity transmission line, known as TUTAP (an acronym for Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan) from Hairatan to Kabul through Salang, rather than through Bamyan (see AAN’s analysis here and here). The protesters claimed the decision was motivated by discrimination against Hazaras who form a majority in the central region of the country, including Bamyan province. The protesters demanded the routing of TUTAP through Bamyan.

Though President Ghani banned any demonstrations for ten days after the Deh Mazang attack, his ruling failed to stop protests outside the country, which continued for several months, against the government in general and him in particular. Expatriate Afghans demonstrated against the president when he attended the Brussels Conference in October 2016, the Munich Security Conference in February 2017 and during a visit to Australia in April 2017. (1)

The Enlightenment demonstration was neither the first, nor the last demonstration since President Ghani’s administration was inaugurated in September 2014. At least in the capital, three large demonstrations were organised before the Enlightenment protest and one after it. There was the Farkhunda demonstration on 24 March 2015 (2), the demonstration of the so-called Tabasum Revolution on 11 November 2015 (3) and the first demonstration of the Enlightenment Movement on 16 May 2016. (4)

Then on 2 June 2017, thousands of Kabuli citizens, organised by Uprising for Change, took to the streets after a massive truck-bomb was detonated in Wazir Akbar Khan killing 150 people and injuring 500 more (more details here and here). The protesters demanded the resignations of President Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar and the security minsters for what they said was their continued failure to protect the lives of Afghan citizens in Kabul and other provinces. Six protesters, including Salem Izadyar, the son of the deputy chairman of the Upper House of the Afghan Parliament, were shot dead by soldiers from the Kabul garrison (see here). The situation was further inflamed when his funeral was targeted by two suicide bombers. The protesters, mainly Tajiks, installed protest tents at several intersections in Kabul, virtually shutting down parts of the city for 18 days until their last tent was forcibly removed by the Kabul garrison during the night of 20 June 2017 (see here).

While the Uprising for Change sit-ins continued in Kabul, President Ghani organised a large number of meetings with various groups, including political parties, civil society organisations and trade unions. In his meetings, the president discussed the negative impact of the ongoing sit-ins to public order, to the income of the private sector and the lives of private citizens. According to his official website, President Ghani met around 3,000 individuals and promised to “set the limits of freedom” explaining that “our national interests and Islamic values are our limits” (see here). According to a one-page report that was attached to the leaked draft of the law, the Law Committee of the cabinet resumed and accelerated drafting the new Assembly Law on 12 June 2017, ten days after the Uprising for Change had started its protest.

These five large demonstrations against the National Unity government (NUG) in Kabul, and many smaller ones outside the country have challenged the effectiveness and legitimacy of its security and development strategies in the two and half years since its establishment. However, as well as concerns from the government that the protests highlighted its vulnerability, there were also other reasons why the NUG has wanted to try to restrict the right to protest.

Negative impact of protests on public order and economy

The government argues that these demonstrations have harmed public order and the economy, through the closure of roads, shops, banks, business centres and government institutions. Therefore, according to Second Vice-President Sarwar Danish, who heads the Law Committee of the cabinet, “the Assembly Law must balance maintaining the right of citizens to protest with the public order” (see here). According to the one page report, which was prepared on 10 April 2017 by the Ministry of Economy in cooperation with the security organs (AAN obtained a hard copy), as many as 187,713 state employees had not been able to get to work during the demonstration on 23 July 2016. In the report, three solutions were recommended to reduce financial losses:

“1) The route of a demonstration and place of gathering or sit-in have to be outside the centre of [large] cities to maintain public order and keep the roads open; 2) the route of a demonstration and place of gathering shall be away from business centres; and 3) the organisers of protests shall guarantee the security (masuniat) of the protest, the maintenance of public order and public property, traffic discipline and social and economic interests.”

Securing the protestors

The need to provide security for protesters may have been another reason behind the redrafting of the Assembly Law. This concern has existed from the beginning of the establishment of the NUG, with a review made three months into the presidency, and a drafting of a demonstration regulation by the National Security Council on 27 December 2014. The regulation aimed at preventing terrorist attacks against protesters (according to a hard copy of an NSC document obtained by AAN). Although it is not clear when the draft was finalised, five routes for demonstrations and a few places for gatherings and sit-ins were specified in the new regulation. All are located in the suburbs of Kabul city. (5)

A faulty law

Finally, the need to fill some gaps in the current Assembly Law was mentioned in official documents as the most pressing reason to draft a new Assembly Law. Although these documents did not provide details about the gaps, the new draft law does contain some improvements on the old one. Some of them are discussed in the next paragraphs.

2. What are the most important changes in the new draft of the Assembly Law?

The draft of the new Assembly Law, leaked on 8 July 2017, has six chapters and 33 articles. There are many changes, some for the better. Compared to the Assembly Law, the new draft has a better structure, with some articles having been shifted from one chapter to another, and some paragraphs from one article to the other. Some definitions have been added, for instance for sit-ins. But most of the changes curtail the freedom of assembly: more restrictions have been added to the right to protest, more responsibilities have been given to the organisers of protests, and more authorities given to the police (who now have fewer responsibilities).

The most substantive change is the addition of new provisions that introduce restrictions to the permitted time, subject, manner and place of demonstrations, strikes and gatherings, as well as limitations to the right of participation. Some of these restrictions may violate the constitution.

Restrictions on what protestors are allowed to protest

According to para (1.1) of article 8, protesters only have the right to protest when they have “reform objectives”, ie objectives that aim to improve the “situation of the country socially, economically, politically, culturally, artistically and in terms of [workers’] unions and security.” Protestors could of course argue that a protest that is critical of the government and that does not explicitly fall under any of this categories could still be seen as having ‘reform objectives’ but the government could choose to disagree. For instance, the Uprising for Change movement demanded the resignation of the president, the CE and the national security adviser, arguing that the resignation of these officials would change the security situation for the better. However, this demand was called “irrational” by some Afghan senators.

In para (1) of article 21, the drafters of the new law – representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior and the Attorney General’s Office and Nasrullah Stanekzai, the head of the Presidential Judicial Board – listed the characteristics of unlawful protests, saying that “gatherings, strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins on the basis of ethnic, religious and regional demands are not allowed.” This restriction harms the right of ethnic and religious minorities, as well as the rights of residents of particular areas. For example, based on this article, it appears that Afghan Sikhs would no longer be able to demonstrate to demand the protection of their religious rights. Or the residents of Kandahar would, for instance, not be allowed to organise a sit-in to ask for cheaper electricity in their area. Such restrictions were never part of the Assembly Law, which in its article 4 only determines a few basic red lines saying that “the protesters shall not carry weapons, violate the constitution or stand against national interests.”

Restrictions on when and how long protestors are allowed to protest

There are already restrictions in the current Assembly Law and these have been added to. The ban on demonstrations between sunset and sunrise and within 48 hours of an election, referendum or Loya Jirga (Article 8) has been expanded to include demonstrations during those events as well (Para (2) of article 11 of the draft law). There is a new ban on any sit-in that lasts more than three days (Para (7) of article 10). The ban on any kind of protests during a state of emergency (Article 21) remains.

Although limitations on demonstrations before and during an elections or referendum might make sense, this seems less obviously true before or during a Loya Jirga. During an election or referendum, each citizen uses their vote to make a decision, but in a Loya Jirga it is the officials and politicians who make decisions about issues that are directly connected to the fundamental rights of citizens, including amending of the constitution. Citizens should be able to protest and raise their voices, before and during a Loya Jirga.

Not allowing a sit-in to continue for more than three days makes it a much less effective tool for protesters, as the government knows the protest must end and will not cause it any serious problems. In general, protests are not held only to make the government aware of people’s demands, but also to force the government, through public power, to address them.

Restrictions on where protestors are allowed to protest

Article 3 of the new draft, and also of the current Assembly Law, distinguishes two types of places: public and private. ‘Public places’ refers to roads, squares, parks and other places where people can freely move and assemble. ‘Private places’ refers to an area where movement and assembly is subjected to the permission of the owner, possessor, or custodian officials. The definitions of public and private places are very similar in the Assembly Law and the new draft. Only “the permission of possessor or custodian officials” which covers state property, is added to the definition of private place provided in the draft. In other words, state property is now considered a ‘private place’.

Article 8 of the current Assembly Law only bans demonstrations, gatherings and strikes in areas close to military establishments, places where explosive and combustible material is stored, hospitals and nurseries.

The new draft expands certain restrictions using the notion of public and private places. According to para (2) of article 7, the police may ban gatherings, strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins in private places, “if necessary,” though the term of ‘necessary’ is left undefined. Para (3) of article 10 stresses that “No person may use the right to gatherings, strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins to block public roads in a manner that prevents the movement of traffic and operation of government and non-government institutions.” Para (1) of article 14 gives authority to the police to specify the route of protests under “specific conditions” which, again, are not defined either. Para (1) of article 11 states that:

Gatherings, strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins shall not be held in the following places: 1) within 500 metres of military facilities; 2) within 500 metres of explosive and combustible material storage spaces; 3) in border regions; 4) within 200 metres of hospitals, kindergartens, nurseries, holy sites, schools, higher education institutions, and government administrations; 5) in the vicinity of critical and important storage facilities and resources; 6) in the vicinity of detention centres (prisons, detention centres, [police] custody centres, and juvenile rehabilitation centres); and 7) on public roads that prevent movement of traffic completely.

Given how big cities are constructed in Afghanistan, this seriously limits the choice of available routes and places for demonstrations. Moreover, security concerns over mass protests often lead the government to close the roads along the route of a demonstration. The new rules will so severely restrict where protests can be legally held that is difficult to imagine them now being able to take place in the centre of big cities. Indeed, none of the routes described in the 2014 demonstration regulation would be permissible for protests.

Restrictions on protestors’ right to participate in protests

The current Assembly Law, as well as the new draft, bans protests by members of the Afghan security forces (article 24) and foreign citizens (article 22; who could be expelled from the country).

Para (5) of article 10 of the draft law also bans the participation of children and para (6) bans “influential people” from “politically intervening” in any kind of protest (the term is not defined in the draft). Banning children and ‘influential people’ from participating in protests appears to be contrary to article 36 of the constitution; it gives the right of demonstration or gathering to all citizens of Afghanistan, without any explicit exception. The constitutional right to demonstrate does not only cover the right to be actually present at these civic protests, but appears to cover the broader right to be involved through political, technical and financial support, which might be interpreted as ‘intervention’ under para (6) of article 10.

Other restrictions in the new draft law

Both the current Assembly Law and the new draft ban all kinds of protest when security concerns exist. Article 14 (current Assembly Law) and article 18 (the new draft) state that if the area of gathering, strike, demonstration or sit-in is no longer safe because of security concerns, protesters must immediately leave the area. Articles 8 and 29 (the new draft) say that protests will be allowed when there are no security concerns. However, neither the current law, nor the draft provides a specific and clear definition or description of the term “security concerns.” This vagueness can easily be misused by the government. The cancelation of a demonstration on 24 July 2017, on the date of anniversary of the 23 July 2016 Enlightenment demonstration and suicide attack, could be an example here, at least according to MP Raihana Azad, a member of the high council of the Enlightenment Movement and the only female MP from Uruzgan province. She said the Kabul police sent two letters to the Enlightenment Movement warning of the high possibility of terrorist attacks against protesters during their planned demonstration. It said that if they wanted to protest, they would be responsible for any consequences. As a result, the organisers cancelled the demonstration, despite not being convinced about the reality of security threats.

Para (6) of article 10 of the draft bans hunger strikes that could result in the death of the hunger striker(s). (A strike (etesab) in the new draft is defined as “the collective abstention by employees of governmental or non-governmental organisations from working, or the refraining from eating, which they exercise in order to achieve a specific goal.”

New divisions of responsibilities and authorities

The draft has given new responsibilities to the organisers of demonstrations, gatherings, strikes and sit-ins, which are legally problematic. Para (4) of article 9, for instance, makes the organisers responsible for any unlawful action that happens during the protests, regardless of whether the organisers had any role, whether active or passive, in the unlawful act. This is against the ‘modes of liability principle’ that crime is a personal act, guaranteed in article 26 of the constitution. Para (2) of article 25 (Chapter Five: Criminal Provisions) obliges the organisers “to prevent the protesters from resorting to arbitrary violence and, if they are unable to do so, to report the issue to the security authorities.” Para (3) of article 25 also obliges the organisers to identify protesters who commit violence and introduce them to the police. This seems not only impractical, but to also interfere with article 134 of the constitution, which stipulates that the investigation of a criminal act is the responsibility of police. Identifying perpetrators is part of investigating a criminal act. Putting this responsibility on the shoulders of organisers is akin to giving permission to random people to intervene in a criminal investigation and prosecution processes, something which is not allowed by the Criminal Procedure Code. Moreover, the organisers are unlikely to have the capacity to do so.

In relation to the authority of the police, the new draft law is technically clearer than the existing law. Article 5 of the draft law names the Ministry of Interior as the enforcing authority of the Assembly Law. Only when the police are unable to control violence during protests, can it ask help from other security forces, according to para (3) of article 17.

Police obligations, duties and authorities are covered under chapter three (article 14 to 20) of the draft law. Article 17 gives the police the authority to use physical barriers (such as containers and T-walls) and provide riot gear and equipment to policemen if protests turn violent. If protesters continue to commit violence, the police can respond aggressively, including opening fire, based on the Police law (gazetted in 2009). Although this provision is already covered in the current Assembly Law, more details and technical clarity is provided in the draft.

The most egregious point in the draft, however, is the authority given to the police to withhold permission for demonstrations, gatherings, strikes and sit-ins, if they determine they may threaten the public order or there is a security concern (para (3) of article 29). Though the organisers can appeal a refusal to the Ministry of Interior (in Kabul) or the governor’s office (in provinces), the subsequent decision of the ministry or the governor’s office will be final (para (4) of article 29). The police also have the authority to cancel a permission after its issuance it has been given (para 2 of article 20).

3. How do the new draft and the current Assembly Law protect the freedom of assembly?

Both the current Assembly Law and the draft mention protests as the right of every Afghan citizen. According to article 4 in the new draft (article 2 in the current law):

Citizens of the country shall have the right to gather, strike, demonstrate and sit-in, without carrying weapons and in accordance with the law, for peaceful and lawful purposes which are not against the national interests and provisions of the Constitution.

Article 36 of the constitution foresees the right of “demonstrating and gathering,” without defining this, but does not explicitly mention the right to go on strike or hold a sit-in. ‘Strike’ was added and defined in the current Assembly Law and ‘sit-in’ in the draft of the new assembly law. Recognition and definition (4) of demonstration, gathering, strike and sit-in are the most notable parts of these two legislative documents in terms of maintaining the right to protest.

In addition to that, article 6 of the current Assembly Law obliges the government to ensure the security of the protesters. This provision has been removed from the draft.

Both the draft and the currently Assembly Law prevent intervention by the police in ongoing peaceful protests, ie those which are conducted in accordance to the law. Both documents forbid the government from prohibiting citizens from using their right to conduct demonstrations, gatherings, strikes and sit-ins without “serious specified excuse[s]”. These two obligations make the government responsible for providing an atmosphere in which citizens can enjoy their right to protest.

Though the mentioned provisions are strong, they are in practice undermined by the many other restrictions and the fact that the government has absolved itself of the responsibility to ensure the security of protesters.

4. How has Civil Society and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) reacted to the new draft law?

Nine days after the draft was leaked on 8 July 2017, a group of Afghan civil society organisations called a press conference to share their concerns about the draft (full text here). They compared the legislation to the laws of the Afghan communist regime (1979 to 1992) saying that:

The recent National Unity Government’s decision to redraft the demonstration [Assembly] [L]aw, particularly after the last two demonstrations [the Enlightenment demonstration and the [U]prising for [C]hange demonstration] is evidence of an attempt to control the freedom of citizens. This reminds the public of the suppression, torture, and assassination policies that were enacted from the late 1970s to the late 1980s […].

In their press release, they also mentioned:

The draft law stands against all democratic values and principles. The confining and limiting aspects of this draft obviously violates the constitution of Afghanistan, all democratic values, and are against all the gains that we have struggled for during the past fifty years of our history.

The day after the press conference, on 18 July 2017, the Law Committee of the Afghan cabinet invited representatives of civil society organisations and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) to provide their opinions in the draft. According to Khalil Raufi, one of the civil society representatives, they could not review the whole draft in the meeting. Nevertheless, Sarwar Danish asked them to submit their recommendations in writing. In the meeting, Danish asked the representative of the Ministry of Justice to finalise the draft after receiving the recommendations and to submit the draft to the cabinet for its approval.

The AIHRC and the group of civil society organisations submitted their recommendations on 25 July 2017 (see here). They recommended removing all phrases that were open to differing interpretations or that could be misinterpreted. (6) They determined that para (4) of article 9, which holds organisers responsible for any unlawful acts committed by protesters was against article 26 of the constitution and asked for its removal. They also recommended that all protests should be based on the principle of ‘pre-announcement’ rather than ‘pre-permission’ meaning that protesters do not need to gain permission to protest, but rather that informing the police should be enough.

(So far, there has been no organised response from other parties, whether economic groupings of business people or trade unions) or political parties. Nor has the draft been debated in parliament.)

5. How do the two main mass opposition movements view the draft law?

The Enlightenment Movement has not had any public position on the new draft of the Assembly Law, but MP Raihana Azad of its high council, criticised the government’s move in a conversation with AAN on 13 August 2017. She accused President Ghani and a close circle around him in the palace of trying to shut up any voice against the government by re-writing the Assembly Law:

Demonstrations and media are two tools that citizens and political opponents have to raise their voices against the policies and failures of the National Unity Government. The draft [of the new Assembly Law] indirectly and practically bans demonstrations, even though it determines demonstration as a right of citizens. The barriers on place, in the draft, are set in such a way that the protesters cannot find places in big cities for their demonstrations. They are not allowed to demonstrate close to universities, schools, hospitals, military facilities and explosive materials storages. The protesters are banned to close roads during their protest, which is impossible to avoid in practice.

The Uprising for Change movement released a statement at the end of their final demonstration on 27 July 2017, denouncing the draft as against the constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (see here) Asar Hakimi, a member of the leadership council, told AAN on 14 August 2017 that he believed the current Assembly Law was being re-drafted to restrict civic movements like his own. He believed the curtailment of sit-ins to only three days was, in particular, a direct response to their 18 day sit-ins and protest tents in June 2017. Hakimi also complained that even now, the situation for protesters was not easy; when the Uprising for Change informed Kabul police about their second demonstration, it took almost a week for the permission was issued, though the police are obliged to provide a space for protest 24 hours after an application is submitted.

Edited by Martine van Bijlert, Sari Kouvo, Jelena Bjelica and Kate Clark

 

(1) For example, on 5 October 2016, during the Brussels Conference for Afghanistan, where most of Afghanistan’s international donors came together to promise their support for the coming four years, a demonstration against President Ghani’s development policy was organised in Brussels. The protesters asked Afghanistan’s international donors to support the Afghan government on the condition that there would be no more discrimination. Inside the country, public discontent among the Hazara population increased against the president and his national adviser, Hanif Atmar, with some claiming that government officials, including Atmar, had intentionally not provided security to the protesters. For more analysis about the challenges the Enlightenment Movement created to the National Unity Government (NUG), see this previous AAN analysis).

(2) Six months after President Ghani became president of the National Unity Government (NUG), Farkhunda Malikzada, a young woman, was cruelly beaten to death and her body burned by a mob in the centre of Kabul, while dozens of Afghan policemen watched (more details here and here). The shocking crime in the middle of the city led to a large demonstration in front of the Supreme Court on 24 March 2015 (more details about the prosecution of the perpetrators here). The protesters criticized the NUG’s security forces for its failure to protect Farkhunda, noting that the atrocity occurred within a few kilometres of the presidential palace, and went on for more than half an hour. They demanded that the Supreme Court prosecute both the perpetrators and the policemen who did not prevent the murder (see here).

(3) On 11 November 2015, thousands of Kabul citizens demonstrated and marched toward Pashtunistan square, where one of the entries of the presidential palace is located. The protesters had named their demonstration Enqilab-e Tabasum (Tabasum Revolution), after Shukria Tabasum, a nine-year old girl, one of seven Hazaras who had been abducted and beheaded by anti-government forces in Zabul province (local officials claimed that ISIS had committed this atrocity). They had been part of a larger group of 31 Hazaras who had been taken hostage on their way from Kandahar to Kabul and held for 50 days, before being beheaded (see here). The massive demonstration and the fact that a group of angry protesters managed to enter the grounds of the presidential palace (but were stopped after the security guards opened fire), greatly alarmed the government (see this AAN dispatch for more details and this article).

(4) On 16 May 2016, the Enlightenment Movement held its first demonstration, which was even larger than the one that took place a few weeks later on 23 July 2016. Karim Khalili, the former second-vice president under Karzai (now the chairman of the High Peace Council), was one of the organisers that time. He left the movement to create a joint technical committee, established by President Ghani, that was to revise the route of TUTAP line. However the main body of the movement did not accept the governmental led committee and continued their protest.

(5) Based on this regulation, demonstrations can only be conducted on the following routes 1) Shahid Mazari Square toward Haji Nabi [Omid Sabz] town (west and southwest Kabul); 2) Kutal-e Khairkhana to Cheshm-e Dugh (north Kabul); 3) Chaman-e Hozuri (centre of the city); 4) Kart-e Naw to Ahmad Shah Baba Maineh Square (east Kabul); and 5) Beni Hesar to Pul-e Sang Naweshta (south Kabul). Parks, such as Shahr-e Naw Park, Chaman-e Hozuri and Park-e Heseh Awal-e Khairkhana, were allocated for gatherings and sit-ins.

(6) For example sub para 3 of para (1) of article 8 states: “the organisers [of protests] shall commit not to carry weapons, lacerating and battery tools, not to disrupt the public order and safety and not to promote divisions, hatred, discrimination, violence and conflict.” They suggested to only keep “shall not carry weapons, lacerating and battery tools” and remove the other parts.

(7) In the new draft, demonstrations, gatherings, strikes (with mini-changes compare to the current Assembly Law) and sit-ins are defined as follows:

Gathering: an assembly of more than 10 people in an organised and coordinated manner in a public space where they express their opinion and sentiments regarding a legitimate and lawful matter to attract the government and public opinion regarding the matter.

Strike: the collective abstention by employees of governmental or non-governmental organisations from working or refraining from eating which they exercise in order to achieve a specific goal.

Demonstration: a peaceful, organised and public gathering and march of people on a specified route to express their sentiments or make specific demands.

Sit-in: a situation where one, or more than one, person occupies a specific place by setting up tents, or without tents, in order to make legitimate and lawful demands or see his/her absolute rights or those of other persons fulfilled.

 

 

 

 

On 22 August France joined the EU SatCom Market, becoming the 24th member of this EDA initiative launched in 2009 to provide contributing members with flexible commercial satellite communication (SatCom) solutions and more recently also Communication and Information System (CIS) services.

SatCom and CIS services are fundamental for Communication, Command and Control in any military or security related operation or mission. It enables Commanders to connect units in remote areas with HQs and capitals and to manage its mission and tasks. The EU SatCom Market project provides a flexible and cost-effective way of doing this, offering members a pay-per-use solution without imposing any binding financial commitments beyond services ordered. 

The contributing members have mandated the EDA through a ‘Joint Procurement Arrangement’ (JPA), to manage the project including the negotiation and management of Framework Contracts (FWCs) and service requests on their behalf.  So far contracts are signed with Airbus Defence & Space for SatCom  services and with Airbus Defence & Space and Thales Communications & Security for CIS services. 

The current 24 contributing members are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom, Republic of Serbia, the Athena Mechanism and the civilian missions EUCAP SAHEL Niger, EUCAP SAHEL Mali, EUAM Ukraine, EUCAP NESTOR and EUMM Georgia.
 

More information:

• EU SatCom Market project page
• EU SatCom Market factsheet

On 4 September, the Subcommittee will consider the draft report on the implementation of the Common Security and Defence Policy by Michael GAHLER, EPP. The draft report advocates a thorough revision of the CSDP to better equip Europe in an increasingly unstable and volatile internal and external security environment.
Further information
Meeting documents
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Key Points Israeli company Rafael opens office in Melbourne to ‘deepen’ activities in Australia Move supported by growing government-level defence links between two countries Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is positioning to expand in Australia as part of growing defence

Russia's Tractor Plants Concern has showcased the BMD-4M airborne infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) upgraded with the new Sinitsa (Titmouse) combat compartment at the Army-2017 international military-technical exhibition held outside Moscow from 22–27 August. The Sinitsa is essentially a

Russia's Military Industrial Company (VPK) has unveiled the BTR-87 armoured personnel carrier (APC) at the Army-2017 international military-technical exhibition, outside Moscow. The vehicle on display features a frontally mounted powerpack, with the troop compartment located in the rear. The APC is

Cobham announced on 22 August that it had been awarded a contract from Sacheon-based Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) for munition carriage and release equipment. According to Cobham, the contract will see the firm deliver an undisclosed number of Weapon Ejector Launcher (WEL) systems to KAI by

Key Points GA-ASI hopes to have its Protector UAV variant UK military certified by 2021 This could eventually lead to certification to fly in civil airspace and a new market for UAVs General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc (GA-ASI) is aiming to have its Protector, a variant of its Certifiable

General Dynamics demonstrated the ability to launch an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) during the US Navy’s Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) 2017. The company also displayed a prototype capability for deploying unmanned vehicles from a

Key Points The Indian MoD has issued an RFI to foreign OEMs for 234 helicopters for the Indian Navy The RFI aims to procure 111 naval utility helicopters and 123 naval multirole helicopters India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has invited responses by 6 October from overseas original equipment

The US Air Force (USAF) has awarded Lockheed Martin and Raytheon each USD900 million contracts for the new nuclear-capable Long Range Standoff (LRSO) cruise missile’s technology maturation and risk reduction acquisition phase. The two companies will work via cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts,

Key Points Malaysia has named and launched the country’s first Littoral Combat Ship Platform will provide the Royal Malaysian Navy with all-round offensive capabilities against air, surface, and underwater threats Malaysia’s Boustead Naval Shipyard (BNS) has launched the first

Japan’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency (ATLA) has selected Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to lead a programme to build medium surface combatants for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), it has been confirmed to Jane’s . The programme will be supported by lead

Northrop Grumman demonstrated the ability to undertake multidomain autonomous command and control (C2) at the US Navy’s Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) 2017, held at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Panama City Division, Florida. The company used two unmanned surface vehicles

Roketsan has begun serial production of the UMTAS (Uzun Menzilli Tanksavar Sistemi) imaging infrared (UMTAS-IIR) variant, long-range anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), following successful finalisation of the development and qualification of the missile – including firing trials from a Turkish

Russia has signed agreements with a number of African countries on the side lines of Army 2017 international military-technical exhibition held outside Moscow from 22-27 August, as the country seeks to grow its presence in the region. Russian media reported that Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had

US Pacific Fleet on 22 August relieved Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, commander of the Japan-based Seventh Fleet, from his job following a slew of major accidents. Admiral Scott Swift, the US Pacific Fleet commander, relieved Vice Adm Aucoin “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to

The United States is cutting USD96 million in aid from Egypt and withholding USD195 million in funds for military assistance as a result of humanitarian concerns, Reuters first reported on 22 August. Although US officials have yet to confirm the decision publicly, an Egyptian official criticised the